Membership of league down

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 2

Membership of league down

Social Credit’s membership is down about 3000 on the 1979 conference figure. Delegates to the league’s conference at Lincoln College were told that, at the end of July, Social Credit had 12,226 financial members.-

The national membership target for the end of the year was 34,600, said the membership committee’s chairman, Mr A. PattersonKane.

This was just 15 per cent of those who voted for Social Credit in 1978, he said. He called on members to get out and persuade people “gently” to join the league. To plan for success in 1984, the league would have to set a goal of 80,000 members.

Since the end of July, membership in the East Coast Bays electorate had increased from 271 to more

than 800 because of increased by-election activity. However, in his speech to delegates on Thursday, the party’s president, (Mr S. Lipa) said that at the end of 1979 membership had topped 20,000. The drop in numbers was because many members had not paid their annual subscriptions. A figure of at least 20,000 should be reached by the end of the year when al! subscriptions were paid, Mr Lipa said. The Guardian Publishing Company, which printed the league’s magazine, the “Guardian,” is suffering from the lack of membership drives. The chairman of the company’s directors (Mr R. W. Johnston) told delegates that concentrating on raising money for the BeethamDwyer foundation meant that the league’s membership was not increasing satisfactorily.